Oh, and more of my PIC’s speculoos ice cream topped with a quick blackberry sauce I made from the not so shiny last of 'em I had in the fridge. Pat of butter, berries, pincha toasted sugar, splash of madeira.
Great combo.
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Plan for tonight’s dinner was to repurpose a little leftover pav bhaji into a pasta bake that my mom “invented” when we were kids expressly for the purpose of recasting pav bhaji excess when people didn’t want to eat it.
BUT. Mom was not feeling it 
. So I pivoted to a creamy pesto sauce instead, which made her much happier. Pesto was homemade by sis: cilantro, basil, almonds, and garlic (cheese to be added when using).
I also made chicken for sis and me: a cross between Ruth Reichl’s Diablo and Julia Turshen’s Indecision, both of which are delicious, as was the hybrid.
Carrots on the side for veg, nothing needed as the red winter carrots here are intensely flavored and wonderful.
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I am so old that I learned long ago not to let things like that spoil a day for me. Believe me, it made life a lot better. I am not saying I don’t let myself very briefly be irritated, but I refuse to let anyone else ruin a day in my life.
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oy - lots of catching up here to do! festivities over xmas and ny were limited, though we did eat some good stuff (sister made ATK’s red pozole, i made a rib eye with an incredible dried morel sauce, we had fabulous take-out Chinese on Xmas Eve, lots of snacking, etc.). But i’ve missed too many din-dins now to post them, so i’ll just start off with the NY Day dinner we had at home - just the BF and me, after a night of imbibing like we were 20 year olds (or hell, 30, 40, even 50 year olds). Leftover birria sauce I’d frozen, made with chuck roast this time. Much more tender when i made it with the short ribs, but still really good. Made a bowl for the BF, and a quesabirria taco for moi.
cheezy goodness. I haven’t yet completely dived back into low-cholesterol-ing it. 
had dinner out with the BF on 1/2, and out with my sister on 1/3.
BF is putting me back on the right track with a big salad tonight.
HNY, Everyone!
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Absolutely agree!
Tonight I destroyed my kitchen making pastitsio. I think it was @Mr_Happy who started it?
Sweet kale salad with poppy dressing on the side.
ETA: I probably should have used all the Besamel sauce, but I wanted to save some for the freezer and not have it be too crazy rich.
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Destroying the kitchen is the reason I used to make it only once a year, for a friend’s NY open house, and why I hadn’t made it in 4 years, until last week.
Looks great!
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Chicken corn soup that I made and froze in August
Tina fish salad
Broccoli
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I made a one pan lemony Greek chicken rice bake, which turned into a delicious sludgy pilaf underneath. Roasted parsnip and pears, roasted Delicata squash with maple, and a canned Cassoulet as a proteiny side dish.
The last piece of stollen for dessert.
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Aha, maybe you were the culprit!
Mr. Happy posted about his pastitsio in the Greek Cuisine of the Quarter a couple of years ago. Click the down-arrow to see his photos.
I posted about mine earlier in this topic.
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This one has been on my list, but you’re scaring me… 
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Mmm, that’s a generous Besamel…
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Think about the mess of lasagna, and then add an extra layer of fussiness (beating eggs to toss with cheese, pasta, and butter as well as to temper into bechamel), and you about have it.
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A Besamel Mucho, as it were…
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So much butter! Butter the penne after boiling, 12 tbsp for the bechamel roux, which you have to sample, and the bechamel needs sampling, too. And a nice slab of the pastitiso when it’s done, and I’m out of Lipitor.
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Oh, yeah, so I cut all that way back. I put about 2 Tbsp in the half lb of pasta and used 6 more in the Besamel. That was it.
That recipe is old and a few sizes ago
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